NONFICTION - Nov. 18, 1990

BLACK KNIGHT: Al Davis and His Raiders by Ira Simmons (Prima Publishing; $19.95; 352 pp.). There’s no question that Al Davis, principal owner of the Los Angeles Raiders, formerly of Oakland, is one of the great football minds. But the reader hoping to gain insight into that mind won’t get much help here, for free-lance writer and rabid Raider fan Ira Simmons is more interested in broadcasting his own opinions than figuring out what makes Al Davis tick. Simmons is good at describing the morass of disagreements among Davis, former NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle, the Los Angeles Coliseum and the cities of Oakland and Irwindale, but he spends far too much time cataloguing Raider games and personnel changes since the franchise’s creation in 1960, and too little time exploring the man behind the team.